The Grid: To Lock or Not to Lock?

It’s common wisdom that nobody favors gridlock, right?  After all, who in their right mind would to spent the $billions it takes to operate the federal government, just to have them sit on their hands and do nothing.  What a waste!  Shouldn’t that be obvious to everyone?  Maybe not…

As many Republicans favor political gridlock as oppose it, complicating the lives of leaders of the victorious party in this month’s congressional elections.

While the phrase customarily is taken as a negative, this ABC News/Yahoo! News poll finds that Republican registered voters in fact divide evenly, 42-43 percent, on whether gridlock is a bad thing because it prevents good legislation from being passed — or a good thing, because it blocks bad laws.

The split underscores many Republicans’ skepticism of active government. But it may make it difficult for GOP leaders to push their own legislative agenda. And it raises questions about the durability of the party’s appeal to independent registered voters, who favored Republicans by a record margin Nov. 2, but who see gridlock as a negative by a 2-1 margin, 57-28 percent.

Democratic registered voters even more broadly see gridlock as a negative, and among all registered voters combined it’s viewed negatively by 56-31 percent, again nearly 2-1.

Whatever they think of it, most believe it’s coming: This poll, produced for ABC and Yahoo! News by Langer Research Associates, finds that 81 percent of Americans overall think gridlock is "likely" to occur in the next Congress. Just over than a third say it’s "very likely."

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… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <ABC>

The poll demonstrates two things.

The Republican Party is completely out of touch with what America wants, despite their spurious claim to be representing it.

The half of the Republicans who claim not to support gridlock either lied on the poll or are ignorant.  Since gridlock is the only thing Republicans have done for the last two years, nobody who does not support gridlock has any business being a Republican.